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| Jul 29, 2010 - 06:45 PM |
Queen City News - Helena's FREE Weekly Newspaper |
Helena, Montana |
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Only 224 college students in this country will actually make it through this year’s National Football League draft, and Fighting Saints Tight End Casey Fitzsimmons may just be one of them.
Fitzsimmons, a Carroll senior from Chester, spent last week at the Paradise Bowl in St. George, Utah. The Paradise Bowl is more than an all-star game. It’s a breeding ground for future NFL players, a week-long attack on your potential, your mental capacity, your speed, size, strength and your toughness. At least that how the scouts see it.
"Yeah, they’re all here, pretty much guys from every team," says Fitzsimmons from his St. George hotel room. "It’s been pretty crazy. The first thing they do is measure you. That was kind of weird. Everybody’s watching you. Somehow you come out shorter and lighter than when you got here. It’s that way for everybody.”
The level of talent is amazing. There are 310-pound defensive tackles who can get in a backfield in a hurry; corner backs who can run 4.45 in the 40-yard dash; quarterbacks who can heave the ball the length of the field, and Casey Fitzsimmons is competing against them all.
"I am not intimidated by these guys,” he says. “You know, it’s just like practicing at home–except they’re a little bigger and little faster.”
One scout agrees. The following is taken from John Murphy’s NFL Draft 2003 website) "... the best tight end on the roster during the first two days... has been NAIA tight end Casey Fitzsimmons... he is undersized (6-2, 239 lbs.)... But has sticky hands... he caught every pass today... and may have a future as an H-Back type... if he can run a decent 40-time... and bulk up to 245-250 pound range... he is a hard worker... and not impressed by the step-up in talent."
Every profession has an amount of collegiate bias. A Harvard degree will get you in the door of many law offices. Professional football is no different. Fitzsimmons is competing against athletes from schools such as Washington State, Arizona and Ohio State.
"There does seem to be some preconceived ideas about me coming out of a small school from Montana. I mean, there are guys here from the Big 10, so they get a little more attention. That just means I have to try harder,” he says.
Fitzsimmons is making the most of his opportunities. "My agent has done a really good job for me. He set me up to run for the scouts today. I had like 60 guys standing there timing me. It was great."
Asked how he did, Fitzsimmons puts it this way: "I don’t know. They’re a pretty tight-lipped bunch. But I think I did pretty well."
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The Queen City News is published every Wednesday in Helena, MT, by Mossback Media, LLC.
Contents are copyrighted and cannot be used in any form without prior permission from the QCN.
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